


If the world is ending

by tinta_roja



Series: we can wake up home again [1]
Category: Cobra Starship, Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Gen, 怪獣 | Kaiju (Pacific Rim) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2013-08-10
Packaged: 2017-12-23 01:11:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/920224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinta_roja/pseuds/tinta_roja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt might still be in mourning, just a little, for the thing that almost killed him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If the world is ending

Toward the end of the third day of non-stop victory celebrations, Newt takes a long look around the Shatterdome and decides he needs to get out. Everyone is raucously busy with something—drinking, kissing, chanting the same cheers seventy-two hours on—so it’s easy enough to slip away, though he catches Hermann’s eye from where he’s been hoisted up on yet another cadet’s shoulders. Even up there, in his moment in the sun, the bastard looks pensive, his gaze piercing as he eyes Newt. Newt quickens his pace.

  
Outside, the sky is darkening fast. Packed on a rickety cart with fifteen unarmed civilians, Newt is able to breathe again. For Hong Kong City, the buzz of activity that defined the metropolis picked right back up as soon as the Breach closed. Ordinary people can’t afford to drop everything and celebrate, not when there are spoils to plunder.

  
Newt shudders to think of the kaiju as spoils, picked over by vultures. He might still be in mourning, just a little, for the thing that almost killed him.

  
He thinks, sitting squashed intimately close to at least four other bodies that smell like they haven’t been washed in days, that no matter how advanced technology gets in one part of the world, there will still be people struggling in the streets, willing to do whatever it takes to wrangle their way to the top.

  
When he puts his hand on the door of Chau’s lair, the first thing that registers is a man who looks about as wiped as Newt feels, sitting with his head in his hands. Newt coughs, “Um, I guess you’re Chau’s…?” He’s at a loss for what to call them.

  
“Leftovers?” A dark-haired woman places a steady hand on the guy’s shoulder as she asks him, “Isn’t that what you’d call us, Gabe?”

  
Gabe finally looks up at Newt with a mostly-genuine grin, “This is Victoria. She’s a psychic.” Victoria, wearing a shimmering, skin-tight dress the color of brake lights reflected off wet pavement, doesn’t smile.

  
“Alex, Ryland,” Victoria calls to a pair of tall figures in suits with their heads bent conspiratorially in the shadows, “These are human beings. Say hello.”

  
They both flip her off simultaneously, and she’s laughing with her mouth wide open when she turns back to Newt. He can’t understand how she’s so blasé. They just saved the world. The world had been on its way out, and she’s laughing as she picks through the remains for a salvageable profit?

  
“Hey, that’s my line,” Newt splutters before he catches Victoria’s smirk. “Psychic. Right.”

  
“Victoria almost pulled off some kind of mind-meld with Reckoner in 2016, but the psychic weight was too much. It almost killed her.” Gabe says. He sounds grim, and Victoria presses her lips together, no doubt remembering. Newt’s own neurons crackle at the memory of the Drift; he can’t fathom flinging one’s psyche to the kaiju like that, with absolutely no defenses. “God, that was stupid of you.” It's out of his mouth before he can think better of it, but their expressions remain neutral. Neither of them have asked him why he’s here, and he’s not entirely sure himself. He might just want to make sure the clean-up operation isn’t getting too out of hand. Yeah, that must be it.

  
Gabe is cleaning his nails with a knife. “You’ve actually done it, though, big boy. You’re the real deal.” There’s something like admiration in his voice, and Newt can’t help puffing out his chest just a little.

  
Gabe continues, “After Reckoner, we spent nine years laying low in the Amazon. And let me tell you, nobody talks about the coast of South America, but man, it was bad. We’d gone to Valparaiso the week before it got hit, and those beautiful bright houses on the hills must’ve been like candy to the kaiju. _Malditos_.” He spits, and Newt is reminded of a snake.

  
“But if you hate them so much, how was the obvious solution to start a cult?” Newt’s voice pitches wildly.

  
“You have to learn to take the good where you can, down to the kaiju’s bones.” Victoria rubs a gentle hand over Gabe’s back, taking over when it’s clear he’s too livid to speak, “Right, guys?”

  
Alex and Ryland look up from where they are preparing some kind of meat to be cooked over an open flame. Newt has to ask, “What’re you cooking?”

  
Ryland spears something long and slimy on a toasting fork, and doesn’t miss a beat as he replies, “Sperm whale.”

  
Gabe springs to his feet, a snake uncoiling. “I told you _pelotudos_ not to cook that in here!”

  
Newt takes another sniff. He thinks the slimy thing crackling over the fire might actually be Otashi. They were cooking her (it?) in some kind of sacrificial rite to keep the Breach from opening again. Just as quickly, he thinks he might throw up.


End file.
